Some People Still Won't Get Online

from the money-or-fear dept

While for many of us, the internet has become a central part of our lives, there are still many Americans who haven't bothered with the internet. In many cases, it is still a money issue. While it's getting cheaper all the time, for some it's still difficult to justify a computer purchase and a monthly ISP. For others, it's a fear issue. There are so many stories about all the bad stuff online that many are afraid to even try it out.
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  • identicon
    dorpus, 29 Dec 2003 @ 5:08am

    Just as well?

    The crowd who would send the "virus warnings" to every single damn person in the world, who refuse to understand that what they are doing is unhelpful, only that others must be "in denial".

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2003 @ 10:58am

    It's more than that...

    When I informed my family that I was moving all written communication to e-mail, I was politely informed by my father that my grandfather would never use use a computer because "many years of manual labor have left him with hands and motor skills that prevent him from using a keyboard".

    Until really good voice recognition and reasonabley "ubiquitous" operting sytems and devices come along, there will always be a segment of the population (as high as 20% by some estimates) that will never use personal computers on a daily basis.

    As for me, I mitigate all the bad stuff out there using knoppix live CD, Virtual PC and keep all of my "production" desktops off the Internet in general. harsh, but it works.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      dorpus, 29 Dec 2003 @ 11:20am

      Re: It's more than that...

      Yup. Even a simple innovation like allowing the monitor screen to be used like a touchpad would improve ergonomics, but that technology seems to come and go cyclically.

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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